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Respecting some new Researches on the well-known Phenomenon 

 of' the Erosion of the Columns of the Temple ofSerapis, at 

 Puozzoli By M. Capocci, Director of the Observatory at 

 Naples. 



M. Arago, at the meeting of the Academy of Sciences on 

 the I5th of May last, made a verbal report, as he had been re- 

 quested, concerning the relative changes which the level of the 

 sea and the coast appear to have undergone in the neighbour- 

 hood of Puozzoli. 



M. Capocci states that M. Nicolini, his fellow-countryman, 

 had established on satisfactory documents, the following propo- 

 sitions : — 1st, That the epoch (anterior to our common era), 

 when in the Temple of Serapis, the Mosaic pavement was con- 

 structed, which has been discovered under the more recent pave- 

 ment of marble, the level of the sea in that locality, compared 

 xoith that of the land, was lower than at the present time by fif- 

 teen Neapolitan hand-breadths (the hand-breadth is about 0,8515 

 Enghsh feet). 2d, That, in the first centuries of the common 

 era, which corresponds to the time when the warm baths and the 

 new pavement were built, the level of the sea was six hand- 

 breadths and a-half ahove the present level. 3d, That in the 

 middle ages the level of the waters was about twenty-two hand- 

 breadths above the present level ; and, ith, That at the com- 

 mencement of the present century, the sea Avas lower than nov/ 

 to the extent of two and a-half hand-breadths. 



In support of the opinion which attributes these movements 

 to the soil, and not to the sea, M. Capocci cites, and this is the 

 most important part of his memoir, various passages taken from 

 the accounts of eye-witnesses of the terrible eruption which, in 

 the year 1538, produced a new mountain, the famous Monte 

 Nziovo near the lake Lucrino. All these writers, viz. Porzio, 

 Toledo, Borgia, and the second Falconi, agree in delating that 

 the sea retiredj'rom the shore to the extent of SOO paces.* But 

 how is it possibje that the sea could retire, thus lovvering its 



• Lofredo stated in 1580, that fifty years before that date they were in the 

 habit of fishing on spots where in his time they saw old ruins between Puozzoli 

 and Lucrino. 



